Goard Keeps Cool Despite Sudden National Profile

December 22, 2000|By Kevin P. Connolly and Robert Perez of The Sentinel Staff

SANFORD -- Sandra Goard was grabbing a cup of coffee at a 7-Eleven when she was surprised by a young man who recognized her as Seminole County's supervisor of elections.

At the time, Goard was in the political fight of her life, defending a lawsuit aimed at tossing almost 16,000 absentee ballots cast in the presidential election.

The suit, sparked by her decision to allow GOP operatives into her office to modify absentee-ballot requests, thrust the virtually unknown elections chief into the national spotlight with the presidential election hanging in the balance.

She was suddenly a hero to some, a villain to others.

To Goard's relief, the guy at 7-Eleven was a big fan.

"He held out his hand and shook my hand," Goard said.

A day later, the Florida Supreme Court upheld a lower court's decision that sided with Goard, ruling that what happened in her office didn't justify tossing ballots -- a move that could have turned the presidential election on its head by swinging enough votes for Al Gore to win the presidency.

Goard won her courtroom battles but didn't emerge unscathed. Her next challenge may be to restore confidence in her office following a disapproving court opinion -- the first substantial criticism of Goard's performance since she took office 17 years ago.

At the very least, Goard is no longer the low-profile elected official that she once was.

Goard, a Republican, used "faulty judgment" by allowing GOP operatives into her office to modify more than 2,000 of the party's absentee requests after she had initially rejected them because they lacked voter-ID numbers, Leon County Circuit Judge Nikki Clark said in a Dec. 8 ruling.

While Clark denied a request by Longwood Democrat Harry Jacobs to toss all or part of the absentee votes because of Goard's actions, the judge's criticism is providing plenty of ammunition for her new political opponents.

At a recent meeting, Democrats began chanting a new mantra -- "Defeat Sandy" -- and plans were laid to find a candidate for her seat in 2004, when Goard's term expires, said Bob Poe, a Sanford resident and chairman of the Florida Democratic Party.

"I don't wish her ill will, Poe said. "I just don't want her to be the supervisor of elections anymore. That's not ill will."

For her part, Goard said Clark's ruling that there was no "fraud, gross negligence or intentional wrongdoing" was a vindication.

GOARD: NO `FAULTY JUDGMENT'

Goard disagrees with Clark's "faulty judgment" assessment.

"Perhaps I just made a professional decision that, looking back, individuals didn't think was right. But I made that professional decision in the best interest of the voters of Seminole County."

If the situation came up again, though, Goard said she would first "talk to legal counsel and then go from there."

That's not something she did in October, when a state GOP official called after learning about problems with the absentee requests.

A new law designed to combat voter fraud took effect in 1998 requiring specific information, including ID numbers, on absentee applications. While the law doesn't say what elections supervisors are supposed to do with incomplete requests, Goard initially played it safe and refused to process them.

The GOP urged Goard to release the forms so they could be corrected outside her office. She refused. Instead, she agreed to the official's alternate proposal: allowing party workers into her office.

A GOP employee, assisted briefly by two other party workers, modified the forms in a back room of her office from Oct. 19 to Nov. 2.

"I didn't give it a second thought that there was anything at all wrong with that," Goard said.

Republicans said Goard is a cautious, by-the-book elections chief who doesn't give anyone an advantage, including GOP candidates.

The Libertarian Party of Seminole County, which had four local candidates, described Goard and her staffers as polite and helpful, saying they never hampered their party-building exercises.

Before this year's election, Goard probably was the least-known elected official in the county. She took office as a Democrat in 1983 when then-Gov. Bob Graham appointed her to fill the remaining term of her predecessor. She was elected without opposition the following year and changed her party affiliation in 1985. She was re-elected to a fifth full term without opposition this year.

The Parkersburg, W.Va., native is petite to the point of looking frail and speaks with a soft twang. But that fragile appearance belies an inner strength brought on by adversity at an early age.

When Goard was 11, her father died unexpectedly, she said. Her parents had gone to the doctor to check on her mother, who was six months' pregnant. When her father complained of a sore throat, the doctor gave him a shot of penicillin. He died in the doctor's office of anaphylactic shock.